Baltimore SmartCEO’s Smart 100 – Clean Start

When Lisa Bands, president of My Cleaning Service, Inc., bought the company from her father in 1993, it was hard getting people to perceive she was running the business.

“There are not many woman-owned janitorial companies, even today,” she says. When she applied for the company’s women-owned business certifications, she was initially denied. Bands needed letters from customers, suppliers and business contacts validating her position.